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The War for the Union, 1861 -’65. 


Facts vs. The Misrepresentations and Boastful 
Claims of the South. 


The more familiar we are with what precedes some 
great question, the better we are able to comprehend it. 
If we would now read only the Southern accounts of the 
great struggle, wherein the prelude is quite ignored, we 
undoubtedly would form a very different opinion from 
what we would with the prelude in distinct remembrance. 
For years before that war the Southern speech was full of 
boastfulness, and for the most pronounced claims for the 
rights and beauty (!) of slavery; and the right and in¬ 
tent to destroy the Union, unless the people of the North 
would submit to the dictation of the South in all the es¬ 
sential affairs of the State. Then, prior to the war, their 
boast was that one Southern man, as a soldier, was equal 


Note. —Revised edition, making correction and some slight addi¬ 
tion to text. This edition will replace the first edition. 

Now, let the men of the South correct some of the statements they 
have so persistently made ever since the surrender at Appomattox, 
whereby they have conveyed such a wrong impression as to the 
character and forces that were engaged in the great struggle between 
themselves and the men who fought for the Union. 












2 






.Nu 


to five Northern men. Every means of statecraft was 
used to further the power of slavery; and when it was 
seen that the Northern free power was rapidly increasing, 
and entering and dominating new territory, and creating 
there a sentiment for freedom, the statesmen of the South 
exercised all the ingenuity that human skill could devise 
to prevent an overbalance of power in the interests of 
freedom. 

So, long before the open rupture came, there were the 
legislative fights; on the Southern side for slavery, and 
on the Northern side against slavery. Unless the Union 
would serve the cause of slavery, it must be destroyed. 
Slavery, from the Southern point of view, was a great 
blessing; therefore it must be allowed to be the dominant 
power in the land. This, and even more, was the senti¬ 
ment before the war. Now, from the Southern side, much 
of this is ignored; indeed, about all of it, excepting the 
one-to-five fighting power of the South vs. the North. 

One peculiar phase of this subject is, that as soon as a 
Northern man rises to comment upon these things, he 
is all wrong; he is raising the cry of the “bloody shirt.” 
But, year after year, the Southern papers can be full of it; 
it can come to full blast at their reunions, and even their 
orators in Congress can take every available opportunity 
to teach the youth of the South that slavery had nothing 
to do with the war; it was simply a war, on their part, for 
liberty against oppression. And in the struggle the valor 
of their men and the glory of their women were never 
equaled; in fact, it was the most glorious war for liberty the 
world ever saw. Really, a war for slavery, and for the 
destruction of liberty; to destroy the grandest govern¬ 
ment the world ever knew; and where Northern valor 
was equal to the emergency, and never had to ask any 
odds of the enemy! 

Indeed, where the men of the North met the men of 
the South there was no question, on their side, as to valor; 
and in all that makes the superior man upon the field of 
battle, the Northern man won; at least where he was 
under an able commander; and when defeated, as he was 
occasionally, it was the General that political interests had 
put over him that was defeated and not he. Then, in 
this connection, the fact must not be overlooked that the 
commanders of the Northern armies were repeatedly 
changed; while in the Southern armies there was little of 

Exchatige 

Sons Arner.Rev-Uby 
ft 2 b. 25 1936 



H.tt.fc.rtfy&i. 


3 

this, and none of it in their principal army in Virginia, 
that faced the Army of the Potomac with its many 
changes. This, however, tested and proved the effi¬ 
ciency and valor of the Northern soldier. Had the 
armies of the South been forced to submit to such 
changes among their commanders, they would not have 
made even as good a record as they did. Here was a 
test of soldiership of which the South little knew. 

The women of the North, like the men of the North, were, 
to say the least, the equals of their sex on the Southern 
side; and their sacrifice and devotion for the Union was 
of the grandest type, and received its support through the 
inspiration of a great and noble cause—a cause that the 
future will appreciate, and not lament. 

Thirty-six years after the scene at Appomattox the New 
Orleans Picayune editorially brings up the whole subject 
(as it is eternally being brought up), wherein the whole 
features of the war are introduced, and presented a la 
Southern style. The article even admits that slavery, on 
the part of the North, had somewhat to do with the war; 
bat does not show up the real influence that was exercised 
in the South upon this subject. The tendency there is, 
as a cause, to keep slavery in the background. 

On the Southern side the fighting element was the white 
man, and not a word about the negro as a valuable assist¬ 
ant. 

In a war the fighting is necessarily a small part of the 
real work. The greater portion of the work is in prepar¬ 
ing for all that leads up to the battles. The Northern 
army had to attend to all of its engineer work; while 
the Southern army had its negroes to attend to much of 
that; and this is only one item, yet it has never been 
mentioned, at least where numbers come in. For exam¬ 
ple, a Northern army in real fighting force as to numbers 
should, on paper, be ten to fifteen percent greater than the 
Southern army, that had its negroes to attend to the gen¬ 
eral and miscellaneous work about the camps. The North¬ 
ern army did its own miscellaneous work, while the army 
of the South was materially assisted by its slave labor, that 
did not count as soldiers. When it comes to the names 
on the rolls, the Northern army showed up the larger; 
but practically it was not so large as it there appears. Col. 
Fox, in his “ Regimental Losses,” well demonstrates The 
Real Fighting Force vs. The Names on the Rolls, and 


4 


shows beyond question and quibble that a Northern army, 
with a certain number upon the rolls, was not equal in 
numerical strenght to the Southern army of a like number. 
The Northern army was hampered from first to last with a 
large per cent of supernumeraries, that counted on the rolls, 
but were not combatants. It was a convenient way to pay 
this force—a force that was enlisted and counted as sol¬ 
diers, but was not made up of fighting men. In the South¬ 
ern army there was little or none of this. The slave 
attended to the miscellaneous duties necessary to the value 
and strength of their army. So the rolls of a Southern 
army were a better criterion of its real fighting strength 
than were the rolls of the Northern army. 

Then there is another, and indeed the most important, 
element of Actual Strength vs. Names on the Rolls. The 
army of the North was made up of many changing 
classes; there were the three-months’ men, two-years’ men 
(early in the war), from New York State; then followed 
three-years’ men; more three-months’ men; one-hundred 
days’ men; nine-months’men; emergency men, and re¬ 
enlistments, to say nothing of a large force of “bounty 
jumpers,” some of whom counted twenty-one times; and 
the large accession, from everywhere , just as the war was 
about to end , or had ended. 

The company of which I was a member furnished a 
good illustration of these late recruits. In March, about 
two weeks before the opening of the campaign, which 
was April 2, 1865, we received quite a large number of 
recruits. Then, after the surrender at Appomattox, when 
we were on the road back to our center at Burkesville, we 
received another installment of them. All of these men 
were the recipients of large bounties. It was well under¬ 
stood when they enlisted that the war would soon end. 
These late acquisitions did not enlist to fight, nor did 
they render any assistance in putting down the rebellion. 
But they do count, on paper, and there, and there only, 
materially increase the size of the Union army. 

But now, and ever since the war, repeatedly and often, 
comes up from the boastful Southern side the old claim 
of one-to-five. They claim that they had, and only had, 
600,000 men in the field, and that we had about 3,000,000. 
That we really had only 2,859,000, but they put it in 
round numbers, and call it 3,000,000, in order to make 
the arithmetrical statement harmonize with the one-to-five. 


5 


In this connection Col. Fox gives the separate enlist¬ 
ments as 2,778,304; and states that 300,000 men enlisted 
just before the close of the war, “few of whom, if any, 
participated in any actual service.” 

At this point it would seem well to call attention to the 
statement,. so often asserted, and time and time again 
repeated, since the war, by the men of the South, that the 
force of the Northern army was largely made up of a for¬ 
eign element. We do not deny but what there were for¬ 
eigners in the Northern army ; they were in both armies ; 
and foreigners, in vastly excessive numbers to the South¬ 
ern force in the Confederate navy, were engaged upon the 
“ high seas” in destroying our commerce. They represent 
that the Union force had the resources of the world back 
of it. They do not seem to see that the world was with 
them against the Union that they were trying to destroy, 
and that the Union in this conflict contended against the 
world. In a spirit of boastfulness they simply state that 
a few of their armed vessels, built in a foreign port, and 
manned almost wholly by foreigners, proved a terror to 
our mercantile service. Certainly there was not much 
bravery in those armed vessels preying like pirates upon 
the peaceful commerce of the American citizens, especi¬ 
ally as the morale support of the greater part of Europe 
gave them material help and protection, and winked, 
while they chuckled to themselves, how nicely they were 
assisting one part of the people of the Great Republic in a 
grand struggle against the other part, that would injure 
the American people as a whole—an injury that would 
materially help the Powers of Europe—help destroy 
America. Where were the men of the South in this part 
of the great struggle for our national existence ? They 
were with their own enemies as well as with the enemies 
of the North and the Union ; and what was injury to one 
was injury to another. For in relation to the rest of the 
world we must stand or fall together. Divided, we become 
a prey to the machinations and intrigues of Europe, 
that would if possible destroy us in detail. Successful in 
this, the next step would be to disrupt and further divide. 
The men of the North fought to save the Union, not only 
for themselves, but for the South, and to protect the Union 
from such a dire calamity as they sought to bring about. 

As to the Northern army, the supporters of the Confed¬ 
eracy have repeatedly attempted to make it appear that 


6 


the Northern army was made up largely of European 
mercenaries. The assertion and all that it implies is 
false! As an individual soldier I was with the Army of 
the Potomac from the fall of 1862 to the end, and mingled 
with fellow-soldiers from all the States in that army that 
fought for the Union. In my own company we had a 
few, and probably our complement, and they proved to be 
mere “ bounty jumpers,” and worthless as soldiers. They 
counted on our rolls, but never were they in the fights. 
They enlisted for the bounty, and that only, and deserted 
within a few days after getting it. I saw a few and very 
few of the foreign element. I was for several months in a 
large General Hospital, where I saw the sick and wounded 
of the Army of the Potomac, and certainly there was a 
good opportunity to see the soldiers from the whole of that 
army. The greater portion of the foreign element will 
be found to be late on the rolls, in 1865, when the war 
was nearly at an end. The late recruits, whether from 
Europe or America, were of no value to us in the field. 
The work of putting down the rebellion was then practi¬ 
cally over. This reference, on the part of the South, to the 
foreign element as soldiers in the Union army is nonsense, 
and conveys a false impression as to the make-up of the 
grand army that fought to save the Union. It may afford 
them some little satisfaction as an amelioration for the 
pride that has counted upon the one-to-five idea, but as a 
practical reality it is and can only be represented by a 
very large 0. 

The men of the Union army and the men who won 
the battles of that army were good American citizens, and 
not aliens, bounty jumpers, nor new arrivals from Europe 
or anywhere else, but good, substantial American citizens, 
and as such the peers of any of the American citizens south 
of the Mason and Dixon line. 

In none of their vain statements have I seen them fair 
and just. The statements that they make are deceiving. 
To a certain extent they tell the truth, but not the whole 
truth, and therefore as a whole their statements are want¬ 
ing in truth. 

When a man entered the Southern army, so far as we 
have been able to learn, he was there until death, wounds 
or sickness retired him from the number of combatants; 
while in the army of the North it was constant change; 
and the names on the rolls from 1861-65 are no indica- 


7 


tion that the men bearing those names all the while rep- 
sented the strength of the army in the field, as did the 
600,000 claimed for the Southern army. 

But from facts now well known, and which Col. Fox 
has to some extent demonstrated, we believe that the 
South had more than 600,000 men in the field, and at 
least double that number. 

The rolls of North Carolina show a total enrollment of 
125,000, and a more complete list would seem to indicate 
a greater number. There were eleven States in open 
rebellion, and border States that contributed some thous¬ 
ands to the Southern cause; and no mention of the emer¬ 
gency-men in the Southern army, who from time to time 
rendered valuable service. 

Then, in support of the greater number, is the fact of 
the great numbers that they repeatedly put in front of 
us—say at Gettysburg. For a wonder, the Northern army 
had there the shorter line, or inner circle, and the South¬ 
ern army the longer line, or outer circle. Yet all along 
the line they had a force at least equal to our own. Here 
may he an opportunity for a little humor on their side— 
that they moved so rapidly as to make their numbers ap¬ 
pear greater than they were. That may do for humor, 
but not for fact. 

Another point the Southern historians have never 
brought out prominently ; and that is, that we necessarily 
had long lines of communications to keep up; and this 
itself required a strong force. As a rule, they were on the 
inner line, where all their fighting force was available. 
But never a word from them about such things. It would 
spoil the story of their prowess. 

Col. Fox shows that in the Northern army most of the 
fighting was done by 300 regiments; that over 300 regi¬ 
ments were not in action; “a large part of the Union 
armies was used in protecting communications, guarding 
lines of supplies, in garrison duty, and as armies of occu¬ 
pation. The Confederate regiments were all at the front,” 
there being no necessity or call for them to attend to such 
duties as the greater portion of the Northern armies were 
called upon to do. The South admits that they had 
600,000 men in the field, and we think that they had 
more, at least double the number. Their losses were about 
double that of the Union army. After a careful analysis, 
Col. Fox says: “It is doubtful if there were 2,000,000 


8 


individuals actually in service during the war;” and this 
is 1,000,000 less than the excessive figures so often quoted 
by Southern writers. With such an unbiased analysis 
there is nothing to support the ridiculous one-to-five ratio 
which all these years has so persistently been claimed by 
the South. The Northern army carried the war into the 
territory of the South. Suppose this had been reversed, 
and that the Southern army had attempted to subjugate 
the territory of the North, I wonder what ratio of force, 
man for man, they would have needed for such an under¬ 
taking? They would have discovered that they would 
have needed an army more than five-to-one, more than 
five times such a ratio. There is no old veteran of the 
war but what will admit that the men of the South were 
foemen worthy to meet on the field of battle; but I do not 
think that there is one of the old veterans but what on 
the field was ready to stand up and face the enemy man 
for man, and never ask any odds. 

This Southern talk about the one-to-five, or superior 
valor, is bombast, and a most ridiculous falsehood. 
When the war began the men of the North were not so 
proficient in the use of implements of war, but it did not 
take them long to learn; and when commanded by able 
officers they asked no odds; and, as a rule, were the 
aggressors—and an aggressive fight and a defensive fight 
are two quite different things. The Northern soldier did 
not fight for slavery nor to destroy the Union; he fought 
for the Union and for mankind; and every year reveals 
to the world the wisdom and glory of his sacrifices. 

The advantage that the North had in the war for the 
Union was in the material and spiritual forces that they 
had cultivated from the first. Along the same line the 
South had the same opportunities, but would not heed 
them. A broad and generous fraternity and spirit of 
humanity, combined with practical methods of industry, 
made the North what she was and is. A nation cannot 
be great and powerful, and an agent for good, that does 
not develop, so far as she is able, all the resources that 
nature places at her command. The South sought to 
build upon a basis of contracted and narrow principles 
of fraternity and humanity, and in ignoring the essential 
features of applied practical sense, whereby she, too, might 
have developed her mechanical industries. She was a 
one-sided power. She developed, as the powers of Europe 


9 


wanted her to do, only agriculture, and that only par¬ 
tially, and let the mechanical industries go. In her agri¬ 
culture she thought herself supreme; and even boasted of 
her power, and her ability to maintain that supremacy. 
Her cotton was King. But while cotton was a powerful 
King, he was. not to be compared with the many Kings 
that ruled in the North; indeed, some of the products of 
the North, in money value, surpassed King Cotton. But 
in addition to these products of agriculture, she developed 
her mechanical industries. She was not, like the South, 
dependent upon the outside world for the materials of 
war. Her superior force lie in the development of her 
mines, and in her work shops, in combination with her 
farm products. 

A nation with such a combination of large resources is 
strong, and a power within herself as well as in the world. 
A nation that depends, as did the South before the war, 
upon agriculture, and only upon a limited branch of that, 
is necessarily weak. The South grew up with wrong 
ideas as to labor and humanity. Slavery was wrong, and 
so was her economic and social conditions. These condi¬ 
tions led her into the war, and but for them there never 
would have been the terrible war, which they persist in 
saying was not a “ rebellion.” At this late day we shall 
not quarrel with them as to a name. If they choose to 
reject and condemn the word “Rebellion,” and designate 
the same as a “ War between the States,” let them do so. 
We know what led to the war, and what were the results. 
The principles of humanity, industry and self-preserva¬ 
tion and self-reliance, as a nation, that had their home 
in the North, prevailed. The “New South” evidently 
now see this, for they, too, are now following along the 
same line. In this we conquered. But because we con¬ 
quered we have not attempted to glorify ourselves, or to 
take upon ourselves any vain glory because thereof. And 
for any misrepresentations on their part we have no 
respect. A prominent Southern General I frequently 
heard say that “ it would have been the worst thing for 
us had we succeeded.” And he was a valiant corps com¬ 
mander in the Army of Northern Virginia. 

It is now easy to say that the war for the Union might 
have been averted; but it was not. It seems like one of the 
things that must have come. And now that it is over, 
and the deep wound healing, it seems very unwise for the 



10 


defeated party to eternally claiming itself right; that all 
the valor and knightly qualities were on their side, and 
that their cause was the most holy; the while ignoring 
many things that were vital elements in the war, and the 
many disadvantages under which the brave and loyal 
sons of the Union won a glorious victory—a victory that 
the defeated party enjoys as well as themselves. If ever 
there was a war that was glorious, it was the war for the 
Union. Its practical results have already been seen and 
acknowledged; and in the future the parties of both sides 
will glory in its results. 

ISAAC P. NOYES, 

Battery H, First Rhode Island Light Artillery. 

409 4th Street S. E., 

Washington, D. C., 

February 22, 1902. 





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